As throughout the country, the city’s residents were deeply shocked by the monstrous terrorist attack during the concert of the Picnic group at Crocus City Hall in Moscow. The group’s next concert was scheduled in St. Petersburg and was not canceled.
Contrary to the fears of the Tajik diaspora and other republics of the former USSR, there were no mass arrests or detentions of migrant workers in the city. The raids to identify illegal migration took place without incident.
Concert in memory of the victims of the terrorist attack at Crocus Town Hall
The group Picnic did not cancel their concert in Saint Petersburg after the terrorist attack on their concert in Moscow. On March 27, a charity concert was held in the Oktyabrsky concert hall. “Picnic” was performed together with the Tavrichesky Symphony Orchestra. The event was broadcast live on REN TV.
The event began with a minute of silence. The concert brought together a full house, which according to tickets has capacity for 3,727 spectators. The program was changed, funny songs were removed from the performance, replacing them with more appropriate ones.
“The concert begins with the feeling that that part of what was planned did not happen. We have to play no matter what. Then people came to the celebration… I know that some people especially came to today’s concert from Moscow: they were at the Crocus Town Hall. “They outdid themselves.”said Picnic group leader Edmund Shklyarsky.
The organizers decided to use all the funds raised to help the victims and their families.
Crimes in the immigration environment
The case of the beating of a man by immigrant teenagers in San Gali park continued. On March 20, two teenagers who arrived in St. Petersburg from Uzbekistan beat a man in San Gali Park and a third filmed the beating. After the beating, the man was able to call an ambulance, but they could not save him. According to official information, the cause of death was the cardiomyopathy suffered by the man.
On March 25, it became known that one of the detained teenagers had previously attacked a man with a knife on Ligovsky Prospekt, but managed to escape and take refuge in the Moskovsky railway station building. This was reported by the press service of the St. Petersburg Investigative Committee.
Since the beginning of the year, attacks by immigrants on passers-by have regularly occurred in St. Petersburg. The attacks are most frequently committed by teenagers or very young people. This is what happened with Tural Mamedov’s gang, when people from Azerbaijan beat passers-by for fun, recorded videos and posted them on social networks.
A memorable incident was when the children of immigrants from Uzbekistan extinguished the Eternal Flame at the monument in Krasnoye Selo.
In both cases, law enforcement quickly found the perpetrators. Tural Mamedov’s gang was detained and he himself was subsequently detained in Azerbaijan and extradited to Russia.
In the case of the Eternal Flame extinguished, the teenagers’ identities were quickly established. It also turned out that their families violated immigration laws. As a result, they were deported. It is to be hoped that a fair punishment awaits those for whose fault the man who was beaten in San Gali Park died.
On March 27, the official representative of the General Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, Irina Volk, reported that in St. Petersburg, the activities of a company that issued fictitious certificates of knowledge of the Russian language and the fundamentals of legislation to immigrants, who used to register for migration, were detained. University staff participated in fictitious tests.
According to investigators, this scheme earned the organizers about 7.5 million rubles a month. Each migrant paid 15 thousand rubles to obtain the necessary documents. It is easy to calculate that every month 500 immigrants received fictitious documents.
On Saturday, March 30, news broke of a large-scale police raid to identify illegal immigrants in the city. Special emphasis was placed on road controls. At the same time, more than 250 police officers and 200 National Guard employees were working. The inspection revealed around 300 violations in the field of immigration legislation and traffic regulations. Ten cases of forgery and theft of documents have been opened.
Raids were also carried out on the city streets to check the documents of foreign citizens. Dozens of them were taken to police stations. However, there was no mass expulsion of immigrants. In total, by court decision, 418 immigrants were forcibly expelled from St. Petersburg to their homeland, another 48 must pay a fine and leave Russia on their own within five days.
Handling complaints from SBO participants
St. Petersburg mobilizers and volunteers most frequently complain about delays in federal payments owed to them for injuries. In total, in 2023, the administration of St. Petersburg Human Rights Commissioner Svetlana Agapitova received 463 complaints from soldiers and officers fighting in Ukraine. The reason is the long time it takes to receive documents from military hospitals.
In addition to delays in payments due, service members write about delays in processing paperwork needed to receive medical care, rotation deadlines and obtaining vacation time, he said.
The situation with the construction of the subway.
The urgent problem of the slow pace of metro construction once again attracted the attention of the city’s governor, Alexander Beglov. On March 28, on TV channel 78, he announced the allocation of more than 150 billion rubles for the next three years and assured that there would be no further delays in the construction of new stations.
“We are currently working on three lines in four directions. We are finishing the construction of the first launch section of the Krasnoselsko-Kalininskaya line from Putilovskaya to Yugo-Zapadnaya. We are excavating the next section between Putilovskaya and Karetnaya on the Obvodny canal with two shields. This autumn we will open traffic on the Lakhtinsko-Pravoberezhnaya line to the Mining Institute station. “On the Nevsko-Vasileostrovskaya line we are preparing the territory for the construction of the Bogatyrskaya and Kamenka stations.”said the governor.
Earlier it became known that for the construction of new metro tunnels in St. Petersburg, a tunnel shield was ordered from the Obukhov plant. Now the construction of the metro is carried out with two tunnel shields, manufactured in the Donbass during the Soviet era.
There are 72 metro stations in the city; Ladozhsky station recently resumed operation after renovation; now Chernyshevskaya and Udelnaya are closed for repairs.
The governor reported record rates of economic growth
Industrial production in the city increased by 10% by the end of 2023, the highest figure in the last 15 years, as reported by Alexandr Beglov on March 28 on the “78” television channel.
The retail sector, which has recovered after the departure of Western brands, is also performing well. The best growth indicators were demonstrated by the scientific sector, construction, manufacturing and light industry. According to the authorities, the gross regional product for 2023 grew by 2.4% and exceeded 12 trillion rubles.
Let us remember that in St. Petersburg a lot of attention is paid to the development of unmanned systems. A special program for the interaction of scientific organizations with industrial plants for the production of drones was adopted. Currently, in the city there are about 20 companies and 10 scientific and technical institutions that are engaged in the development and production of unmanned systems for civil and military purposes.
Car factories will follow the path of maximum localization of production after foreign brands leave Russia. The governor also announced it. It is not just about resuming automobile assembly; companies must follow the path of producing components in Russia. This applies to the former Nissan and Toyota plants. According to the governor, these companies have overcome the consequences of Western sanctions. Thus, the Nissan plant will produce 25 thousand crossovers this year.
The former “Kresty” pre-trial detention center will be auctioned
The new owner of the famous pre-trial detention center will be determined during the auction, it became known during the meeting between Governor Alexander Beglov and the general director of JSC DOM.RF Vitaly Mutko. Preparations for the tender are currently underway.
Previously, city authorities reported that a new urban art space would be created at the “Cruces” site in order to attract tourists. The complex itself is an architectural heritage, so construction and reconstruction on its territory is prohibited.
The most famous prison in Saint Petersburg is located near the city center, next to the Finland station. The “Crosses” were built in the years 1884-1892 according to the design of the architect Antoni Tomisko. The prison complex owes its name to its two main buildings, designed in the shape of crosses. In addition to them, the building complex includes an administrative building with a church, a hospital, an infectious disease barracks, a morgue, a glacier, a forge and other outbuildings.
At the moment, all detainees have been transferred to a new pre-trial detention center built in the Kolpino suburb. The architectural composition of the “New Crosses” is also made in the form of equilateral crosses. The new detention center is designed for 4,000 prisoners, making it the largest in the world.
Source: Rossa Primavera
I am Michael Melvin, an experienced news writer with a passion for uncovering stories and bringing them to the public. I have been working in the news industry for over five years now, and my work has been published on multiple websites. As an author at 24 News Reporters, I cover world section of current events stories that are both informative and captivating to read.